Richard Branson began Virgin Atlantic with a board and $39 flights

A canceled flight, in many people, conjures up frustration and anger. And for billionaire Richard Branson, it is no completely different.

Solely when the British entrepreneur was met with a cancelled flight within the early 80s, it impressed one other response, too: A brand new enterprise thought.

Branson — already a profitable businessman, having fashioned Virgin Information some years earlier — was on account of fly to the British Virgin Islands to be reunited with a “beautiful woman” on his personal Necker Island, when his American Airways flight was abruptly cancelled.

“I used to be furious as a result of I hadn’t seen her for 3 weeks,” Branson recalled in an interview with CNBC for “The Courageous Ones” podcast.

So, he did as all good entrepreneurs do, and seemed for an answer.

The then 30-something marched to the again of the airport, gave them his bank card — “hoping it would not bounce” — and employed a aircraft.

He then borrowed a blackboard, wrote “as a joke, Virgin Airways one-way: $39 to the Virgin Islands,” and crammed up the flight with all of the bumped passengers, he stated.

“(When) we arrived within the BVI, someone stated ‘sharpen up your service a bit and you possibly can be within the airline enterprise,'” Branson recalled.

“So…